Sign off and go home
Councillors asked to take leap of faith
COUNCILLORS are being asked to “sign off and go home” on important policy matters, Cr Nancy Sommerfield has warned.
She made the statement yesterday after the Toowoomba regional councillors were asked to decide on changes to the way the council delegates power.
The amendment anticipates the start of the Queensland Government’s sweeping new Planning Act 2016 which will come into force on July 3.
The changes will empower the council to administer the assessment of development applications.
Without the change, even the smallest of decisions would need to be approved by a full meeting of the council.
The changes are minor in that they “mirror” the delegations in force under the Sustainable Planning Act which has been repealed and replaced.
But it was the manner in which the report was presented to the council that drew Cr Sommerfield’s ire.
She said the councillors needed documents to be presented with the edits clearly shown.
“How do we know that all these delegations, and there are many, are exactly the same as what we’ve already approved under the previous act?” she asked.
“I think it’s very difficult for us to make decisions when you’ve got referrals in there to all these different clauses and whatever, with no link to them.
“We’ve got no indication whatsoever of what we’re approving here and I find it very difficult to agree to something that we really around the table - have no knowledge of. Because it’s all referring to clauses that aren’t even referred to.
“There’s no connection, no link.
“It’s just like, okay let’s just sign off and we may as well go home, that’s how I feel.”
She was told by development services manager Danielle Fitzpatrick that it was not a matter of “tracked changes”.
“They are actually new delegations, there are no current delegations under the planning act because it hasn’t actually commenced yet. “We need to ensure there are delegations... from July 3.”
Ms Fitzpatrick said if the powers were not in place every decision would have to go back to the council for ratification.
“We can’t issue for example information requests on an application, we can’t issue a decision notice.
“That’s why council chooses to delegate certain powers to the CEO and the CEO to other officers.”
Cr Mike Williams supported Cr Sommerfield’s stance and said at the very least there should be a “layman’s reference” to help the councillors understand the powers conferred.
“At the moment there are some sections in there which I have to take a leap of faith to be assured what you’re putting before us is meeting our pre-existing delegations,” he said to Ms Fitzpatrick. “I’m not suggesting you’re not doing that but in completeness in reading this report I can’t determine that.”
Cr Chris Tait said the council did “need to adopt” the changes, and said an explanation could be provided to the council.
Mss Fitzpatrick said a more detailed report could result in hundreds of pages being produced that might not result in the document being any clearer.
The motion was endorsed by the councillors.